Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Tigger11 06-21-04, 08:33 AM	After looking at the rules and the number of feats for each of the example dragons, I have come to the conclusion that I dont understand the progression. The example of leveling up the Red Dragon to a virtual 19th age (which is pretty much taken from the ELH), added just more questions to the mix. Anyone understand this, or can point to a better explanation of how dragons should be gaining feats?? -Tig
Ovistavin 06-21-04, 10:23 AM	Dragons gain feats every 3rd HD (Hit Dice), just like everything else. For the standard races this means every 3rd class level, but dealing with creatures with LA (Level Adjustments) you use HD. So to find out how many feats the dragon you are looking for divide its number of HD by 3 and add 1 for the feat at its 1st HD.
Tigger11 06-21-04, 02:28 PM	Originally posted by Ovistavin Dragons gain feats every 3rd HD (Hit Dice), just like everything else. For the standard races this means every 3rd class level, but dealing with creatures with LA (Level Adjustments) you use HD. So to find out how many feats the dragon you are looking for divide its number of HD by 3 and add 1 for the feat at its 1st HD. Ok so the comment on Page 100 where it says "dragons receive one feat for every 4 Hit dice they have" is a misprint, and the identical comment on Page 180 of ELH is as well?? Looking at your formula matches the 3 species I was looking at, so thats good, but let me ask another question in the same vain. Shouldnt the Advanced Red Great Wyrm on Page 100, have 4 more feats then he has, because he should be getting Improved Spell Capacity (10-13) as bonus feats because he casts spells at over 20th level and should have received the bonus feats at 23rd, 26th, 29th and 32nd (which is the Improved Spell Capacities he has) of have they removed the bonus feats from the Advanced dragons, but if they have why exactly would a dragon take 4 of these when he only has 1 metamagic feat?? -Tig
Derren S. 06-21-04, 03:01 PM	Probably a copy & paste error. There are many of them in the new products. The MM says that monster gain a feat every 3 HD and I think in 3.0 it was every 4th HD. So the Draconomicon entry is wrong because dragons normally get a feat every 3 HD (unless that was errataed in the MM errata). As for the "intelligence" of WotC writeups, there is none. Seriously there are many things messed up with NPC writeups done by WotC, so don't wonder when those writeups are not really effective.
Ovistavin 06-21-04, 06:09 PM	The ELH is 3.0 and the feat progression for monsters was changed in 3.5 to match that of the character classes. As for Spell casting, Dragons cast spell as though they were sorcerers, but they do not have class levels in sorcerer. After a Dragon reaches caster level 20 the only way to cast more spells is to take the Improved Spell Capacity feat and since the dragon is gaining racial HD it doesn't recieve any bonus feats. So the dragon took this feat four times to cast four more spells per day.
Wolf72 06-21-04, 06:10 PM	Originally posted by Derren S. Probably a copy & paste error. There are many of them in the new products. ... and I think in 3.0 it was every 4th HD. ... As for the "intelligence" of WotC writeups, there is none. Seriously there are many things messed up with NPC writeups done by WotC, so don't wonder when those writeups are not really effective. yup, every 4 HD is a 3.0 rule. 3.5 made it universal, so everything gets 1 feat every 3 HD. WotC mess things up? naaaaw, not them. It seems the contributers don't necessarily check with the latest eratta. [case it point, check out the HD discrepancies with the 1/2 dragons in monster mayhem]
Tigger11 06-21-04, 07:47 PM	Originally posted by Ovistavin The ELH is 3.0 and the feat progression for monsters was changed in 3.5 to match that of the character classes. As for Spell casting, Dragons cast spell as though they were sorcerers, but they do not have class levels in sorcerer. After a Dragon reaches caster level 20 the only way to cast more spells is to take the Improved Spell Capacity feat and since the dragon is gaining racial HD it doesn't recieve any bonus feats. So the dragon took this feat four times to cast four more spells per day. I'm not sure you understood what I was saying, ELH (Page 180) says that Advanced Dragons get Improved Spell Capacity as a bonus feat every three caster levels after 20th (ie 23rd, 26th, 29th and 32nd), with a dragons caster level increasing by two for each virtual age past Great Wyrm it acquires. What I am wondering is if that is no longer true, or if this is something that will be errated back in. -Tig
Ovistavin 06-22-04, 11:32 AM	I'm not sure you understood what I was saying, ELH (Page 180) says that Advanced Dragons get Improved Spell Capacity as a bonus feat every three caster levels after 20th (ie 23rd, 26th, 29th and 32nd), with a dragons caster level increasing by two for each virtual age past Great Wyrm it acquires. What I am wondering is if that is no longer true, or if this is something that will be errated back in. Sorry, I missed that part. So the example dragon gained 7 virtual age categories, so a caster level increase of 14. Which means a CL of 33. So these are in addition to what I said earlier. The example dragon has the correct number of feat for 3.0 (which HD divided by 4 + 1 (for 1st HD) + 4 bonus feats). Earlier I assumed you are using 3.5 which is the HD divided by 3 + 1 (for 1st HD) + 4 bonus feats. So a 3.5 version of the example advanced dragon would have 5 more feats than the 3.0 version in the ELH. I hope I said this clearly.
Tigger11 06-23-04, 01:10 AM	Thanks a bunch everyone, I think I understand it all now. -Tig